OK, back to basics.
Submitted by Jacksin of JacksinMusic:
Category: Cats
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First LolCatSynth "contest"
Remember this photo from a few days ago?
Well, this photo has inspired several lolcat captions, including on this original post:
“im in ur ether, changing ur capacitanz”
There are several more suggestions on this repost at matrix.
So am calling the first LolCatSynth contest, to write even more lolcat captions for this photo. Please leave your suggestions in the comment section.
There isn't really any “prize” or “winner” for this particular contest, though I will be happy to do the actual captioning for my favorite submissions, as well as post them (with credit) to the popular lolcat sites.
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Weekend Cat Blogging #108
WCB #108 is being hosted by Pet's Garden Blog, and in honor of the “bengal brats”, we are offering some more photos of our bengal-like neighbor:
On hot summer days, he sometimes would stop and drink out of the fountain sculpture in the yard.
The fountain is an original sculpture of mine titled Imbalance, completed in 2004 and then renovated in 2006. It has been featured on this site before.
Some neighbors do leave out water bowls as a safer alternative, though like many places there are controversies about outdoor cats. We prefer to simply think of them as part of our neighborhood.
Of course, it wouldn't be WCB without Luna starring, so here are some recent relaxing photos of la gatita bonita:
Check out all the other cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #108 and Carnival of the Cats #171 (at a still secure undisclosed location, I'll update when I found out where). We are also showing up late, yet again, for Friday Ark #145.
Speaking of strays, we're going to continue our experiment with Open Trackbacks for this post. Feline related trackbacks preferred.
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Cats in Lebanon…Germany
Who doesn't love pictures of cute kittens?
Well, these kittens are in Lebanon, being cared for by members of BETA. Like many places closer to home, it is kitten season, and their shelter is overflowing with kittens who need homes. And this is on top of the cats and other animals that BETA has rescued from the recent confrontations and senseless religious/tribal violence still happening there.
Meanwhile, in Germany, a country famous around the world for its warm and fuzzy nature, animal shelters experience a summer influx of cats for very different reasons. According the the reports accompanying these photos from Reuters, many of these cats are surrendered to shelters, or simply abandoned, during the long European summer vacation season. You can click on the photo below for a second article.
They don't have pet sitters in Germany?
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CatSynth pic: cat with modular
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Theremin Cats
From Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now:
The context for this picture is Sacawa's lament that early theremin virtuosi concentrated on trying to get the instrument to play traditional western tonal music, rather than exploring the radically new ways of organizing pitch and structure afforded by the instrument. This is indeed something that concerns me about many of the efforts going on to “de-experimentalize” computer music and simply turn it into another tool for traditional classical or popular forms. The great promise of electronic instruments is to allow people to break with the traditions of acoustic music. But Sacawa concludes:
Maybe if more cats–unlike humans, who are so grounded in western tonal music–played the theremin we might witness the instrument's full potential.
And thus we have theremin-playing cats.
Check out this feline thereminist from YouTube:
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CatSynth Correction: The Cats of 5lowershop
Like any publication, we make errors and when appropriate publish corrections. This is one is several months overdue, but I found myself thinking about it tonight. Last September, I played at the headphone festival in San Francisco at the club 5lowershop. It was one of the best live performances I did in the past year. In writing about the experience here at CatSynth, I mentioned a couple of cats I ran across while I there:
I immediately thought they were strays or perhaps neighborhood outdoor cats wandering through, and regular readers know I have a soft spot for such creatures. I am happy to say that I was wrong, as I learned when I received this comment at the end of February:
just an fyi : those kitties are pets too, and very loved. the grey kitty is momma to 6 of those black and white kittens. the kitten in your picture still lives at 5lowershop with mom's identical sister. mom lives with a friend of the family now. the other kittens all found loving homes with close friends. we live a few blocks from 5lowershop and have one of the kittens. they aren't feral, and they get along pretty good with the dogs (only 2 dogs hang out there, and they are quite nice when you get to know them. they pretty much ignore the cats)
seeing that you are such a cat enthusiast, i just wanted to let you know that these cats get spoiled rotten with love and attention. no need to feel bad for them!
It's good to know that those cats are loved, and if anyone associated with 5lowershop is still reading, I would love to come perform there again. I really enjoyed the gritty edge-of-the-city vibe, the people, and of course the cats.
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CatSynth pic: Didier (black cat), Roland and Accordion
Submitted by pete nelson of No Percussion No Explosion:
Pic is of didier ignoring juno 60 in favour of childrens accordion
Didier reminds me a bit of Luna. What do you think?
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Weekend Cat Blogging #107: Peek-a-boo and Stray Cats
WCB 107 is being hosted this weekend at ScamperDude.com, where Scampy is playing both Rock Star and Super Hero.
Luna has some antics of her own, ratcheting things up in our regular hide-and-seek games:
I noticed that that Luna's eyes appear yellow instead of green in this an many other photos taken in the more earth-tone bedroom. Regular fans of Luna know that she has unusually green eyes for a black short-hair cat.
Her antics and affections have been quite welcome of late, it seems like a bit of a melancholy week despite the beginning of summer, and the brightness and warmth in abundance.
On a recent series of morning walks I saw several cats, most of whom were probably strays, like this rather thin character with a striking coat and photogenic appearance:
He/she was one of several cats taking up residence in the large vacant trying separating a large residential neighborhood (my neighborhood, actually), from a Safeway parking lot and strip mall. I hope they get enough to eat.
A few weeks ago, I stopped at the semi-annual rummage sale for one of the main local groups that helps stray cats in our community, Project Purr.
Picked up a few books while I was there, some summer reading. I was mildly tempted by a full set of “Left Behind” paperbacks, but thought better of it.
Also check out Friday Ark #144 (Saturday is the new Friday), and of course Carnival of the Cats.
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CatSynth pic: lissajous (chaos link)
Via matrixsynth:
Originally from gerald:
My cat loves the Lissajous this thing generates
So what is a “Lissajous”? it is actually short for Lissajous curves or Lissajous figures, a class of 2D (and 3D) curves describing complex harmonic functions, or more simply multi-dimensional sine curves. The following equations describe a general Lissajous curve on an x-y coordinate plane:
x = A sin(at + φ)
y = B sin(bt)Most of the time, one leaves out the A and B, which case all the curves fall on a convenient unit square.
The most commonly described Lissajous curves set the phase term φ to π/2, i.e., a standard cosine function, and have a and b at integer ratios, like 1:2, 6:5, etc. You can think of these as natural harmonics, like in musical sounds. You can see a few of the graphs below, first for a=1 and b=2:
Here are 3:2 (a:b), and 9:8, respectively:
As you can see, the higher the ratio, the more complex and dense the figure. If you add all the figures up together, you should be able to fill the entire unit square.
There are all sorts of interesting special cases. For example, if you set a and b equal, you will get a circle. If you additionally set the φ to zero, you will get a straight line. Finally, you can mess with different values of φ, like 0.3 in the first drawing below, or set a and b to non-integer values, to get all sorts of interesting variations:
It is interesting to think about these sorts of functions by relating them both visually and aurally (i.e., synthesizing the corresponding waveforms), but we will leave that as an exercise for interested readers, perhaps returning to the topic in a future article.
cat
synth
oscilloscope
lissajous
harmonic functions
graphTrying a little experiment. Trackposted to Gone Hollywood, Conservative Cat, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, and The Pet Haven Blog, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe. The links here and in the trackbacks do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this site or its contributors.
